


No Poison Mixed

by TonicHoliday



Category: River (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Triple Drabble, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 08:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18246518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TonicHoliday/pseuds/TonicHoliday
Summary: River knew where he stood with dreams, images conjured from his subconscious that drifted from the believable to the bizarre, vanishing when his eyes opened. Manifests were solid, they cast shadows, adhered to tangible laws of reality. They were the real nightmares.





	No Poison Mixed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).



River knew where he stood with dreams, images conjured from his subconscious that drifted from the believable to the bizarre, vanishing when his eyes opened. Manifests were solid, they cast shadows, adhered to tangible laws of reality. They were the real nightmares.

He usually removed illustrated dustsheets from his books. Leather spines looked proper, and there was no chance of characters forcing themselves upon his imagination. Thomas Neill Cream’s charcoal portrait first visited him in a dream: a fragmented, smoky face, blurred, its smile concealing a secret.

Next time, Cream was real.

*

His voice bounced from the concrete, taunting, twisting River’s mind with morbid temptations. River had no choice but listening.

It was his choice to enter the cell. Cream had Erin’s copy of Romeo and Juliet. He had no right invading River’s subconscious, no right touching _her_ things. River knew neither the paperback nor Cream were there, perched on the cot's edge, but he needed something that danced the line between reality and invention to release his anger upon, to batter, bruise. . . murder.

Cream said killing is forbidden. You cannot kill that which does not exist.

* 

Darkness surrounded Cream like a noxious cloud. It seeped into River, clogged his lungs and his pores and filled his skull. Beating him was cathartic, left him anticipating—even craving—his visits. He deserved punishment, deserved a mirror held up to him.

_Just let go, River._

The first time he slammed Cream’s face into a wall, he laughed. Pain flashed across his face, accompanied by that low, daring chuckle. Or was it River’s?

Cream was there when he needed him, never fought back, his knowing smile ever-present.

*

“I am you,” Cream grinned, River’s hands locked vice-tight around his throat. “The only one you’re harming is yourself.”

River smiled back at him. “I know.”


End file.
